Steve Barth
Paris Haute Couture is the highest expression of fashion and opens Monday with a packed calendar of famous brands and young hopefuls. Dior and Chanel will lead the action on Monday and Tuesday followed by Valentino and Fendi on Wednesday and Thursday. Giorgio Armani will also hold a gala show on Tuesday night. The most anticipated show will be Haider Ackermann at Jean-Paul Gaultier, the fourth designer to be invited to stage a one-off couture collection. The official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode boasts a total of 29 brands, beginning with Schiaparelli and ending with Robert Wun. Ready-to-wear brands will also hold shows while major editors and VIPs are in town.
Couture shows are held in historic venues and are attended by a flotilla of limousines. Prices for a hand-made couture suit can reach over €100,000, with several times that for a wedding dress. Thousands of artisans contribute to making couture fashion’s most rarefied moment, with an economic impact of over €30 billion. The calendar is composed of fully-fledged members, major hitters, corresponding members and fledgling guest members, with a further score of couturiers staging small shows and presentations independently.
The heart of the matter will be French couture houses, from the historic to the new generation. Entrance onto the sacred couture calendar is extremely complicated and requires approval by a discreet committee of the Federation. To hear more about French thinking and what drives couture, we spoke to Pascal Morand, executive president of the Federation, who highlighted the importance of haute couture for fashion and France. He noted the economic power of haute couture, which employs thousands of people and has an assessed market of $11.5 billion in 2021 and a forecast of $13.5 billion in 2028.
Haute couture acts as a magnet which reinforces its power, but it is a challenging task to build a couture house, requiring creativity and innovation and working with métiers d’art and ateliers. The Fédération provides strong support to fledgling couturiers, through its Emerging Brands Initiative, and benefits from the support of DEFI for financing the shows of young designers. Pierre Bergé predicted that couture would die, but this season there are four busy days of shows, as creativity, know-how, uniqueness and personalisation are sought after. Haute couture stands at the forefront of modernity and each garment is conceived and constructed with sustainability in mind at every stage. Paris remains the world’s capital of fashion, savoir-faire and creativity.
Paris Haute Couture is the highest expression of fashion and opens Monday with a packed calendar of famous brands and young hopefuls. Dior and Chanel will lead the action on Monday and Tuesday followed by Valentino and Fendi on Wednesday and Thursday. Giorgio Armani will also hold a gala show on Tuesday night, while the most anticipated show will be Haider Ackermann at Jean-Paul Gaultier, the fourth designer to be invited to stage a one-off couture collection. The official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode boasts a total of 29 brands, beginning with Schiaparelli and ending with Robert Wun. Ready-to-wear brands will also hold shows while major editors and VIPs are in town.
Couture shows are held in historic venues and are attended by a flotilla of limousines. Prices for a hand-made couture suit can reach over €100,000, with several times that for a wedding dress. Thousands of artisans contribute to making couture fashion’s most rarefied moment, with an economic impact of over €30 billion. The calendar is composed of fully-fledged members, major hitters, corresponding members and fledgling guest members, with a further score of couturiers staging small shows and presentations independently.
The heart of the matter will be French couture houses, from the historic to the new generation. Entrance onto the sacred couture calendar is extremely complicated and requires approval by a discreet committee of the Federation. To hear more about French thinking and what drives couture, we spoke to Pascal Morand, executive president of the Federation, who highlighted the importance of haute couture for fashion and France. He noted the economic power of haute couture, which employs thousands of people and has an assessed market of $11.5 billion in 2021 and a forecast of $13.5 billion in 2028.
Haute couture acts as a magnet which reinforces its power, but it is a challenging task to build a couture house, requiring creativity and innovation and working with métiers d’art and ateliers. The Fédération provides strong support to fledgling couturiers, through its Emerging Brands Initiative, and benefits from the support of DEFI for financing the shows of young designers. Pierre Bergé predicted that couture would die, but this season there are four busy days of shows, as creativity, know-how, uniqueness and personalisation are sought after. Haute couture stands at the forefront of modernity and each garment is conceived and constructed with sustainability in mind at every stage. The intelligence of the hand, coupled to uniqueness and the intemporal value of haute couture, symbolizes the essence of sustainability. Paris remains the world’s capital of fashion, savoir-faire and creativity.
